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Heavy metal: Suspect charged in theft of SCE&G copper wire

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BEAUFORT -- Beaufort County sheriff's deputies have charged a man with breaking into a South Carolina Electric & Gas plant to steal copper wire.

Deputies responded to an alarm at the station on Bogus Lane in Grays Hill on Tuesday night and found Larry Speaks Jr., 19, carrying two bundles of wire, said Cpl. Robin McIntosh, sheriff's spokeswoman.

Deputies chased Speaks, eventually cornering him under a mobile home on Jonesfield Road, McIntosh said. A second suspect ran into some nearby woods.

A pair of bolt cutters and a cut lock were found at the power station's main gate, she said. About 20 feet of unspooled copper wire was found nearby.

According to a customer service representative at Charleston Steel & Metal Co., insulated copper wire is worth between 50 cents and $1 a pound, depending on how much processing is necessary to strip away the insulation and expose the metal.

Aluminum cans, by comparison, are worth 65 cents per pound.

Speaks was taken into custody without incident and remains in the Beaufort County Detention Center on $13,262 bond.

He has been charged with unlawful entry into an enclosed place, malicious injury to an electric utility system, petit larceny and fleeing to evade arrest, according to authorities.

The second suspect has not been identified, McIntosh said.

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